Order and Disorder in the Bric-à-Brac of the Global Contemporary Art World
- Submitting institution
-
Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_C2003
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
-
-
- Book title
- BRIC-à-brac: The Jumble of Growth. The Third Today’s Documents
- Publisher
- China Today Art Museum
- ISBN
- 9787558014451
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This substantial essay in the catalogue marking the third ‘Documents’ exhibition at the Today Art Museum in Beijing, China, contributes an innovative theoretical account of the development of global contemporary art. The thesis propounded is that the rise of Asian contemporary art, and of Asian contemporary art centres (including Beijing and Hong Kong which feature particularly here), is a function of the growth of a global art world system since the 1990s. Though still dominated by powerful western economic, socio-political and cultural interests, this global and still globalizing entity—though impressionistically heterogeneous and cluttered with ‘bric-a-brac’—actually has observable systemic properties and yet is also radically unstable.
The researcher traces these apparently contradictory elements of ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ to the parent neoliberal global capitalist economy of which the contemporary art world is a part, though the essay’s originality lies in its simultaneous anatomization of these systemic and entropic properties. The researcher considers the development of the global contemporary art world in relation to financial deregulation in the 1990s; the boom and subsequent crash of 2008; the following strong and comparatively rapid revival of the art market—its role as a ‘dysfunctional mirror’ of the world economy; the growing tensions between key institutional players in the art world—western museums, auction houses, dealing galleries; and the diversity of interests and values of the artists themselves.
‘Power asymmetries’ in this interlocking world are the focus of the essay which assesses through several lenses; art historical interpretative frames (‘modernism’/ ‘contemporary’), Neo-Cold War versus multi-polar conflict models in a globalized world, the impact of ‘border conflicts’ related to economic migration, ‘west-east’ dichotomies and cultural ‘split subjectivities’.
The final part of the essay suggests that artworks themselves have an important role to play in helping to ‘figure’ the nature of our contemporary world.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -